The Goldfish | Page 3

anything? Had it profited anything to me or anybody else?
And how far was I typical of a class?
A moment's thought convinced me that I was the prototype of
thousands all over the United States. "A certain rich man!" That was
me. I had yawned for years at dozens of sermons about men exactly
like myself. I had called them twaddle. I had rather resented them. I
was not a sinner--that is, I was not a sinner in the ordinary sense at all. I
was a good man--a very good man. I kept all the commandments and I
acted in accordance with the requirements of every standard laid down
by other men exactly like myself. Between us, I now suddenly saw, we
made the law and the prophets. We were all judging ourselves by
self-made tests. I was just like all the rest. What was true of me was

true of them.
And what were we, the crowning achievement of American civilization,
like? I had not thought of it before. Here, then, was a question the
answer to which might benefit others as well as myself. I resolved to
answer it if I could--to write down in plain words and cold figures a
truthful statement of what I was and what they were.
I had been a fairly wide reader in my youth, and yet I did not recall
anywhere precisely this sort of self-analysis. Confessions, so called,
were usually amatory episodes in the lives of the authors, highly spiced
and colored by emotions often not felt at the time, but rather inspired
by memory. Other analyses were the contented, narratives of
supposedly poverty-stricken people who pretended they had no desires
in the world save to milk the cows and watch the grass grow.
"Adventures in contentment" interested me no more than adventures in
unbridled passion.
I was going to try and see myself as I was--naked. To be of the slightest
value, everything I set down must be absolutely accurate and the result
of faithful observation. I believed I was a good observer. I had heard
myself described as a "cold proposition," and coldness was a sine qua
non of my enterprise. I must brief my case as if I were an attorney in an
action at law. Or rather, I must make an analytical statement of fact like
that which usually prefaces a judicial opinion. I must not act as a
pleader, but first as a keen and truthful witness and then as an impartial
judge. And at the end I must either declare myself innocent or guilty of
a breach of trust--pronounce myself a faithful or an unworthy servant.
I must dispassionately examine and set forth the actual conditions of
my home life, my business career, my social pleasures, the motives
animating myself, my family, my professional associates, and my
friends --weigh our comparative influence for good or evil on the
community and diagnose the general mental, moral and physical
condition of the class to which I belonged.
To do this aright, I must see clearly things as they were without regard
to popular approval or prejudice, and must not hesitate to call them by

their right names. I must spare neither myself nor anybody else. It
would not be altogether pleasant. The disclosures of the microscope are
often more terrifying than the amputations of the knife; but by thus
studying both myself and my contemporaries I might perhaps arrive at
the solution of the problem that was troubling me--that is to say, why I,
with every ostensible reason in the world for being happy, was not!
This, then, was to be my task.
* * * * *
I have already indicated that I am a sound, moderately healthy,
vigorous man, with a slight tendency to run to fat. I am five feet ten
inches tall, weigh a hundred and sixty-two pounds, have gray eyes, a
rather aquiline nose, and a close-clipped dark-brown mustache, with
enough gray hairs in it to give it dignity. My movements are quick; I
walk with a spring. I usually sleep, except when worried over business.
I do not wear glasses and I have no organic trouble of which I am
aware. The New York Life Insurance Company has just reinsured me
after a thorough physical examination. My appetite for food is not
particularly good, and my other appetites, in spite of my vigor, are by
no means keen. Eating is about the most active pleasure that I can
experience; but in order to enjoy my dinner I have to drink a cocktail,
and my doctor says that is very bad for my health.
My personal habits are careful, regular and somewhat luxurious. I bathe
always once and generally twice a day. Incidentally I am accustomed to
scatter a spoonful of scented